Photo:Engage

  “ Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer and often the supreme disappointment. ”  - Ansel Adams How often we flail about trying to influence things we have no control over. What a great waste of our energy and time. Better to focus on the things we do control: our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Imagine how effective we can be then! As I wrote in a poem of my own in my post on February 11, 2023... I saw a twisted tree today with branches in every direction and thought how like some people it is. Unlike, I thought, most trees that grow naturally true and tall or animals that behave instinctively  like the particular animal they are.  People, gloriously infuriating and wonderfully complicated and emotional, wave about like fan-powered air dancers seeking to grab attention. The tree, limbs flailing about, is how like so many we folk are still seeking a direction in life as the tree searches for the sun. Clicking on the image will open it in full screen ‘ Arb

  “ We rely, I think, on landscape photography to make intelligible to us what we already know. ”  - Robert Adams     Not every visit to a special place will have great photographic conditions, but the subject deserves an image, does it not? Here I spent a few hours walking in the amazing forest and swamp on the raised wooden boardwalk through the epic Congaree National Park, enjoying every minute in the subdued light. As I wrote in my post on February 25, 2023...      The largest intact copse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern United States, Congaree National Park lets you walk into the past, to a time before the mass deforestation of most of our country’s native forests. This we can do largely through the efforts of one dedicated man, journalist Harry Hampton, who lobbied relentlessly to save this 11,000 acre forest from the lumber companies.  'Congaree Bald Cypress'      Congaree National Park is named for the native Congaree people whose territory

  “ My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. ”  - Steve McCurry     It's always exciting to me to realize that the place names around us often derive from a notable person or event in the past. Do you get that same thrill?  Here's an example from my post on April 15, 2023...      Scottish trader Alexander Mackay, adventuring under the commission of the Carolina colony Lords Proprietor, sought to exercise a land grant in the southern part of the colony. Later commissioned a colonel in the Beaufort District Militia, he received a grant of 200 acres on an island which had been part of an earlier land grant to the Osbourne family.      The island was also occupied by the Yemassee tribe as a lookout post when that native tribe was used as a buffer between the neighboring English and Spanish colonies. There was an Indian fort at the northern end of the island leading to the local name of Lookout Island.      In 1708, the island was par

  “ You just have to live and life will give you pictures. ”  - Henri Cartier-Bresson      From native American fishing grounds to colonial homestead to plantation worked by slaves to hunting retreat to wildlife refuge, Pinckney Island in lowcountry South Carolina has witnessed much in its recorded history. I shared some details in my post from January 14, 2023...      I’ve referred in my recent birding posts to the beauty of Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge. In this one, I thought I’d show you a view of the refuge itself. As you walk north along the main trail, off to your left past the marsh you will see Mackay Creek, a lovely blue sliver of water that also separates the South Carolina mainland from the island of Hilton Head. The creek is named for Alexander Mackay, the first European to call Pinckney Island his home. The island was later sold to the famed Pinckney family, one of whom was a signer of the Constitution. After the Civil War, the island changed hands again and wa

  “ When I photograph, what I'm really doing is seeking answers to things. ”  - Wynn Bullock      Another path to happiness, an emotion you control, may be found in my post from November 19, 2022...      One can’t answer how to be happy by reciting some creed or pledge. Best to demonstrate by what one does. And the thing to do is to be discerning. Judging well about what we do is the whole point.      Discernment leads to happiness, the direct result of a balanced mind and a soul filled with inner peace. The path to these treasures comes from important questions we ask ourselves: of what do I have control? and what do I not? what is worth my time? what isn’t? what really matters? and who?      If answered honestly at each successive moment of choice, questions like these lead to clarity. And so it is with discernment. It answers the question about what to do and who to do it with in the face of so many options. With reason, not infatuation.      So be not lured by every bright shin

  “ Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. ”  - Gustave Flaubert      I do so love a good baking reference, like Alton Brown's classic way to determine when goodies are done in the oven: GBD! And even better when a little history is tossed in. My post from December 10, 2022 mixed in both...      Official historical markers have been around in this country for about a century now. Virginia posted a few signs at key spots on US Route 1 in 1926 and a few other states had some even earlier. Massachusetts had hundreds up by 1930 and this number doesn’t include the many markers posted by private groups. But the big explosion of the now ubiquitous signs pointing out significant local history happened after World War II.      The great American road-trip came into being as post-war families piled into their cars and hit the road to see their country. In the middle 1950’s, almost fifty million people went to see the great heritage sites of America like I

  “ I think of photography like therapy. ”  - Harry Gruyaert      I doubt there's ever been a time I didn't feel refreshed after spending some time in the woods. Tired? Sure. Dirty? Almost always! Hungry and thirsty? Of course. But always better. Yes, always better. Although there are those moments you wonder why you're there. As I quoted from one of my favorite authors in my post from January 7, 2023...      “There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle. In a way, it would hardly matter.” - Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods Clicking on the image will open it in full sc